Monarchies of the World

Missed Lesotho and Tonga... I was sure Nepal was a monarchy though...

In a most dramatic way, starting with crown Prince gunning down most of the royal family ...

This quiz inspired me to revisit the abolition of the Nepalese monarchy, which I remember, and read about the royal massacre of 2001, about which I had absolutely no idea. The story is nuts.

Aww I'm stupid I missed Thailand... But i'm suprised that Tonga is monarchy! lol

So there's only 29 monarchies out of 196 (I think) countries? I guess that shows how stupid it is. (No offence, I live in one of them myself.)

Depends on what your monarchies does. Ceremonial monarchies aren't too bad at all tbh

Not sure what this has to do with accepting 'being inferior' as you put it - I certainly don't consider it being that.

They're good for tourism, I suppose.

Interesting debate here. I think there are good arguments for a ceremonial monarch, but I don't really buy the idea that they are good for tourism. People aren't going to say "I think I'll visit the UK for my holiday because it is a monarchy". We have castles and palaces that result from the monarchy and are tourist attractions, but would abolition of the monarchy really make them less valuable? Probably not. While it would be pretty ridiculous for a country like France or the USA to start a monarchy now, I do however think that if a head of state is introduced who is directly elected democratically, they will have a mandate to run the country however they want (something Queen Elizabeth II does not have and has never thought she had). And a ruler should have to put their decisions before a parliament in the knowledge that it is the parliament, not them, who holds sovereignty. We could make the Prime Minister head of state, but the formalities involved would likely distract them even

further from running the country. Another alternative is to have no head of state like Switzerland, but if the monarchy were abolished I don't think that would happen. People calling monarchy a waste of money should remember that whatever might replace it would quite possibly cost just as much, or more.

Says one guy. I'll take my republic any day of the week, thank you very much. I guess I'm part of the "stupid majority."

Good question, these aren these all the monarchies in the world? Also, it would be interesting to make a difference between symbolic monarchies and absolute monarchies.

Interesting quiz. :) But technically the Vatican city is a theocracy, not a monarchy, just like Iran. :/

Yes, true. If we're not going to trifle about actual titles, then many dictatorships around the world function just like monarchies with absolute monarchs and hereditary rule. North Korea, for instance, is closer to being a monarchy in practice than Great Britain. The only thing that makes many of these countries monarchies is that they have some twat living in a castle who calls himself king. But the twat at the Vatican calls himself Pope and claims to speak directly to God, rather than simply getting his authority from Him. So, there's a difference.

Well yeah. But the position of pope is not hereditary, which sets it apart from the other monarchies.

... except Andorra.

Pope has changed.

You should change the leader in Vatican. There's now a new Pope

Ah... the countries in the world where it's still mandated by law to worship some inbred rich family. Keeping Up With the Kardashians may be a bit of a cultural embarrassment but at least it's not written in to the constitution that we have to keep it on the air. I guess that's progress?

Been a few months since I last took this quiz. Somehow managed to miss the Vatican despite the conversation we were having last time about the appropriateness of its inclusion on the list. Guess I should have remembered it was on here even if that's a bit odd. Only other ones I missed were Japan and the two land-locked South African countries.

What are you talking about? They're there just for symbollic reasons. They have little to no influence in the government whatsoever. At least in Europe that is. Keeping Up With the Kardashians is made for entertainment. Why would you feel embarassed by a TV show? It's not a representation of a whole country, just of a stupid family (which is kinda foreign BTW).

Even in the countries you could name where the monarchies are figureheads, they still have access to enormous piles of money that they didn't earn and are often protected by certain laws from at least some forms of criticism or disrespect. The media are often limited in what they can show or say about them.

The embarrassing thing about the Kardashians or other reality TV shows is not that all Americans are like them, but that enough Americans are interested in watching television shows about them that they are still on the air. They do nothing of value and serve no useful purpose but enough people are still fascinated by them that they get to keep their prominent place in society. That last sentence could apply to any of the families previously mentioned.

ALL forms of government can be criticised from one or more angles. In the USA, for example, you can't become president without having access to huge pots of money and currying favour with lobby groups who have huge pots of money. Are you saying that Dubya was elected (twice!) because he was the best person out of 350 million citizens to lead the USA? Of course he wasn't; he had access to huge pots of money (which he didn't earn). As an Australian I'm a republican, but as a Brit I'm happy with the monarchy as it is. It brings in huge amounts of tourists, particularly from the USA and I quite enjoy the traditions that go along with having a monarch.

"the most disgusting corrupt and greedy form of government ever conceived by man kind"?

Well, we're full of hyperbole aren't we? There's no doubting that there is greed and corruption in America's capitalist system, but you make it sound like anything would be better than what we have now, and that's ridiculous.

But in the US, the president runs the country. In most monarchies, at least those in Europe, the monarch has no significant role in the running of the country. It's not written in the Constitution that the richest bloke gets the job, but that's still what happens because it takes vast sums of money to win an election. A cap on the amount of cash any party is allowed to spend on electioneering, as exists in many other countries, would go some way to levelling the playing field. After all, the idea is to get the best person for the job, not the person from the richest family.

Our most recent US presidential election proves that the one who spends the most money doesn't always win the race.

^but claiming over and over against to be really, really rich even though you are a failed businessman who has gone through multiple bankruptcies and is afraid to let anyone see your tax returns lest they find out what a transparent fraud you are, that seems to be helpful.

Inbred? There are several members of the royal families in Europe who have married people outside them. Honestly, I'm not a supporter of monarchy, but if the people like it, then that's totally OK with me.

If you spent 3 weeks drinking your own urine and then yesterday had a clean glass of orange juice you're still not going to have a healthy set of kidneys.

Challenge accepted, kal.

Laws like the Treason Act (along with probably loads of others) should obviously be abolished. But... @kalbahamut, restrictions on the media when reporting about the royals? The problem with media focus on the royal family at least in the UK isn't that there is not enough. And nobody with more than a few million pounds really earned it by themselves.

I obviously didn't mean that there was too little coverage. It's not about the volume of coverage but the content that is allowed. And I'm not just talking about Britain, either. Look at all those in Thailand in jail for criticizing the king. Or in a ditch in Saudi Arabia.
You don't think Bill Gates earned his own money?

I have had a look at what has happened with the Thai monarchy and yes you are right in that case. I assumed that when you stated it was mandated by law to worship the royal families you were being hyperbolic; in fact this is literally the case in Thailand. And as you can probably imagine I never meant to defend the Saudi monarchy either (though there it is not mandated by law to worship the royal family). My interest lies mainly in the monarchies of some of the most democratic countries where the monarchies really are figureheads. Ones such as the UK, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Netherlands (I could go on). I don't know of many significant privileges the monarchies of these countries receive that result in people being given criminal punishment.

As for the thing about the money they receive, I could indeed use a fairly plausible definition of "earning" money and explain why Bill Gates didn't earn his, though the argument would come across as Marxist. Perhaps a more helpful line to go down would be comparing how much money monarchs receive compared to other heads of states. The main problem with this is that the actual money these people receive tends to fade into insignificance when the expenses or police protection they receive is factored in. Including or excluding this the money they have that is paid by the taxpayer would probably still be paid to any other head of state.

Then you've rendered the word "earn" meaningless.

Haven't you as well? The Queen does actually do stuff as part of her role as Queen, and my understanding is that if she abdicated she would no longer have access to the money (though in practice she would as one of her close relatives would become the monarch).

No, I haven't at all. The queen did nothing to earn her money other than emerge from her mother's birth canal. She was wealthy and entitled to a life of enormous excess and privilege from the moment she had her umbilical cord cut. Since then, she's done pathetically little to deserve the money wasted on her extravagant and ridiculous lifestyle. The arguments I've seen put forward for the good charitable work she has done or the benefits she gives to the British economy are laughably, pathetically weak. But it wouldn't matter; even if she was the most extraordinarily hard-working noble-hearted woman in history, and she's not, she still did nothing to earn her wealth or privilege. She was born into it. If she did less work or spent fewer hours waving at the commoners she would not get a pay cut.

I *suppose* you could argue that Gates was also born into privilege- he was born in the USA, for one thing. The most prosperous, technologically-advanced, resource-rich country in the world at the time, where entrepreneurial opportunities abounded and the technology that he would go on to refine and popularize was mostly invented. Fortuitous.
He was also largely gifted his staggering intellect and inventiveness and his propensity for diligence, hard work, and competitive drive through some combination of genetics and environment. And was privileged enough to attend Harvard University, though he dropped out, he was still surrounded by other brilliant and inventive people.
The economic size and strength of the country he was born into helped guarantee the commercial success of the products he invented.

So, yeah, you could make that point.
Still, his wealth came about as a direct results of his actions in life. This is how most understand the word "earn."

How could I forget Brunei and Bhutan.

That is an absolute disgrace.

The title of the ruler of the Vatican is the king, but they are awarded to the same person. The title should be king.

So the Pope is also the king of Vatican City? hm.. to Wikipedia!...

there's a CGPGrey video on YouTube about it

Belgium should be updated, King Albert abdicated in July 2013. King Phillipe is the monarch now.

title is misleading... countries that have monarchs would be better very few of these have true monarchy governments

Should the Ayatollah be on here for Iran?

Russians in Afghanistan!

It would be nice to remove the word "still" from the title of the quiz, as it implies a lot of things including a personal opinion.

Like the new look, QM!

I like most things updated with the new look, but why add a "Start quiz" button?

I LIKE the "Start quiz" button very much!

What's the point of the button, I'd like to know.

I can't speak for anyone else but I like having an opportunity to read the instructions without losing valuable time on the clock. Wasted seconds are points lost!

But it also gives time to think about (or even look up) the answers before starting the quiz which is not a good thing IMO.

Looking at this list now, the most amazing thing to me is the surprising lack of monarchies left in Africa. Just Morocco and the tiny kingdoms of Lesotho, Swaziland and Tonga.

Tonga is in Oceania. That reduces the number of monarchies in Africa to 3. I'm not surprised though, because most African countries are relatively new, being formed after 1950 for the first time.

LIving down under is good. We are a constitutional monarchy with the Queen as Sovereign. She has a "substitute" of sorts, they being the Governor-General. The Queen's Royal style and title in Australia is Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of Australia and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth. Taken from: http://www.royal.gov.uk/monarchandcommonwealth/australia/australia.aspx

As soon as I realized that a lot of these countries were tiny, I was on a roll.

All I did was guess...still got Swaziland, Lesotho and Lichtenstein

LOL François, co-prince of Andorra XD

Emmanuel now :)

What about Samoa? Tuiatua Tupua Tamasese Efi is their constitutional monarch...

No, he was duly elected. He's aparently head of a "royal" family (quote marks according to Wikipedia), but it has not much to do with his political function.

King Bhumibol has died. May he rest in peace.

Neat quiz! You clearly did a lot of research. I pretty much just guessed the countries.

Wait, Nigeria's not a monarchy? Then why do I keep getting e-mails from a Nigerian prince that wants to give me lots of money?

There are plenty of princes in abolished monarchies (Serbia, Greece, Germany, ...)

I made a quiz on restored monarchies that you might want to check out. http://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/120795/restored-monarchies

Funny that Prince Emmanuel of Andorra is actually Emmanuel Macron, the French President.

Ugh, I was typing... Liechtenstein, Andorra, Luxembourg, and then I decided, "Vatican City? Nah, he is the pope, not a king!" Completely missed.

Abolished.

An interesting observation I posted above (it was deleted because the user who started the thread was deleted): Of the 17 countries listed as full democracies by the democracy index at the time, 9 were monarchies. This number has since changed to 10/20.

Congrats to San Marino on being the only free city state in Europe!

If you enjoyed this quiz, check out this "Constitutional Monarchies" quiz. Similar, but not at all the same!

Many comments touting that the strongest and most successful governments still have constitutional monarchs. I am wondering whether that is any causal relationship though. I suspect it's just a coincidence. Western Europe has the most successful democracies, and also has a history of monarchies, but I don't think the former is really the result of the latter. The US's current quandary is the result of a culture that is rotting from the inside, owing mostly to greed and bigotry. I don't see how that has anything to do with not having a monarch. I'm sure some grad student has written an interesting paper on the subject. To the internet!

I think it is because the strongest and most successful governments are generally the oldest ones (i.e. countries where it is difficult to bring down the government haven't had the government brought down in a while). Monarchy is an older form of government than a modern democratic republic, so the most stable governments tend to be disproportionately likely to be constitutional monarchies.

The USA has the oldest still-in-use written constitution in the world and has had a remarkably stable and long-continuous government, more than many other countries that most people think of as older which in fact have undergone multiple revolutions, coups, or reorganizations in recent history and so shouldn't really be thought of as old. Great Britain managed to stay out of the revolutions that swept across Europe in the 1800s but that makes them more the exception than the rule.

I had no idea Cambodia was a monarchy

Akihito's reign as Emperor ended after his abdication. Naruhito became Emperor since 1 May 2019, the beginning of the Reiwa era

That's 29 too many.